


There is Only Passion

by verbose_vespertine



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cognizant Revan, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gray Jedi, Moral Ambiguity, additional ship: Malak's face/a fucking lightsaber, bisexual Revan, don't date your apprentice, find out how the Jawless Wonder came to be!, possibly more than canon-typical violence that's slightly graphic but at least there's no blood?, the major character death is canon if you finished the game but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-10 23:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20144041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbose_vespertine/pseuds/verbose_vespertine
Summary: Everyone Revan has ever loved has fallen to the dark side. An exploration of why, how, and what happened after.





	There is Only Passion

**Author's Note:**

> [Obvious disclaimer that I don’t own the characters, thank you EA/BioWare/LucasArts for letting me borrow them]

Everyone Revan has ever loved has fallen to the dark side.

No, not fallen. _ Fallen _ is too gentle a word, a word that brings to mind a careless slip, an accident. No, everyone Revan has ever loved has leapt with abandon into the welcoming arms of the dark side.

-

Revan never realized she was falling in love with Malak until they were deep into their quest to locate the Star Maps, though she knew he had been in love with her for a long time before that. Or, at least, with something in her. They found their last map in a dark tomb on Korriban, both panting and covered in blood, sweat, and dirt from fighting off the terentatek; adrenaline, the Force, and something _ else _Revan couldn’t quite place racing through their veins as the coordinates that would complete their path to the mythical Star Forge appeared before them. As the datalink finished uploading and Revan removed the still-warm datapad with the completed map, Malak bent to wrap his arms around her and lift her into the air, spinning slowly and letting out a deep laugh. When he gently let her back down and loosened his arms so that she could turn to face him, Revan recognized the something else - passion. Malak had kissed her before, but this time Revan meant it when she leaned into him and kissed back.

Her old Masters might have told Revan that giving in to their unbridled passions as they did set them solidly on their path to the dark side, to their downfall. Revan knew better though. Maybe for Malak that passion was part of his swan dive into darkness, but the dark side of the Force called to Malak in a different way than it did to Revan. Revan was following a trail to its source to learn from it. Malak was drawn to power - power that he could almost see coursing through Revan, so he latched onto her, followed her to the ends of the galaxy, and told her that he loved her when what he meant was _ I love the darkness you are capable of _. 

-

Revan thought that she and Malak had set out with the same goals: that they could bring about real change for the galaxy. True, Revan wanted to bring both the Jedi and the Republic to their knees to show them what their inaction and hypocrisy in refusing to act and neglecting to protect non-Core worlds, respectively, had brought them. But she never wanted to rule them, and it was only convenience that had brought her to the Sith. Malak had always seen things in absolutes, and seeing Revan waver on a cusp between light and dark stripped her of all her power in his mind. His attack came from behind, with the advantage of surprise, but Revan was still his superior in the Force. The end of their battle found Malak pressed against a wall, his lightsaber under Revan’s boot, and hers humming maliciously at his throat. She kissed him, viciously, one last time, before hooking her saber up and out, cleanly removing his lower jaw. Her saber hissed off and she turned away, not looking back to see him crumple to the ground, ignoring the guttural, choked screams that tore their way around Malak’s freshly cauterized wounds. Revan’s feelings for Malak were complicated, but he had certainly made it easier not to love him anymore.

-

The next time Revan even feels Malak’s presence in the Force is right before he issues the command for the _ Leviathan _ to fire on Revan’s flagship, hoping to take out his old accomplice-friend-lover-Master while also dealing a critical blow to the Jedi and the strike team sent to take out Revan. One of the thoughts that flashes through Revan’s mind after being violently thrown to the deck is _ I deserved that _ followed by _ I should have just killed him _ . The next though, as the young Jedi with whom she had just been sparring kneels over her and removes Revan’s mask with careful, hesitant hands is _ Oh, Force, no _ . As the Jedi slips one hand against the back of Revan’s neck and rests the other gently on Revan’s chest, Revan notices that the hand on her neck is calloused only along the index finger, the pad of the thumb, and the palm at the base of the fingers, from a light, loose grip on her saber, and it is otherwise soft and surprisingly cool. Revan wonders vaguely why she is so aware of the details of the small hand on her neck, but she notices this, and a wave of the Force, along with that certain something _ else _, flowing and surging in the room, rolling off of the Jedi and crashing into her before her senses go white.

-

When she next sees the Jedi she now knows is Bastila Shan, Padawan Princess and poster child for the Jedi Order, Revan understands instantly why she has felt lead - no, _ pulled _ \- across Taris to this place. Even under neural restraint and heavy sedation, Bastila Shan is a coiled spring, a keyed-up vibration cell, and she has been sending waves through the Force into Revan. In close proximity, the waves hit full-blast with a ferocity Revan can almost hear ringing in her ears.

Once Bastila is freed from her cage and neural bonds, she is seething, white-hot, captivating to watch. Revan feels invigorated, stronger, faster, fighting beside her, and they make quick work of the thugs who had held Bastila captive. Their eyes meet, and Bastila is ready to accuse Revan of only being there to claim her as a prize, ready to fight her too - ready to fight a rancor with her bare hands if she has to - when recognition flashes across her eyes and she falters for an instant. _ She knows who I am _ . Revan steadies her mind, watches Bastila recover her cool; _ But does she know that I know? _

Bastila seems hesitant to trust Revan until she hears Carth Onasi’s name, and asks to be taken to him. Revan offers Bastila her hand to lead her back to their makeshift hideout, and is pleasantly surprised when Bastila takes it. Her hand feels the same as it did that day on the bridge, if slightly clammy with perspiration. As Revan grips Bastila’s hand firmly and starts away, she feels a soft flutter in her stomach that she knows did not originate there.

-

Traveling with Bastila is… intriguing. It is quickly obvious to Revan that Bastila knows exactly who she is. Revan becomes furious with the Jedi Masters for what they attempted to do, what they cannot tell they failed to do, what they are asking Bastila to undertake. Revan is almost amused that none of the Masters can seem to tell that it’s still _ her _standing before them, that the lock they tried to put on her mind, attempting to bury her identity deep in her subconscious under constructed layers of loyalty, didn’t take. Her amusement is wry and short-lived, though it does help her contain her anger with them. Still though - they can’t sense the turmoil in Bastila over the mission they’ve assigned her, or if they do they don’t care. It’s one thing for them to humiliate Revan, who can admit that she did some terrible things in the name of a righteous cause, but entirely another to put someone like Bastila in such a dangerous and compromising position. They can’t see that these types of decisions are why she left the Order the first time around, because they thought she was just petulant and power-hungry like Malak. But Revan does want to stop Malak from destroying the entire galaxy, and playing along is her best bet. 

And the Masters put a name to the feeling Revan has, like a string that has been tied between Bastila’s heart and her own: a Force Bond. They claim not to know where such a bond might have originated, writing it off to her as surviving the shared trauma of the _ Endar Spire _ and Taris, but Revan remembers the feeling of Bastila’s hands on her and Bastila’s energy flowing through her.

_ I should tell Bastila I know _.

-

It does not take long for Revan to realize that Bastila’s interest in her is more than casual and beyond the bond that was forged between them that night on the bridge when Bastila infused her own energy into Revan to save her life. Bastila grew up very sheltered; she does not know how to flirt, though she can banter as long as no one strikes a nerve with her. She has a terrible pazaak face, and despite her training she wears many of her emotions front and center because she has only been taught to repress them rather than to deal with them.

_ I really should tell Bastila that I know _.

Between the jolts of Bastila’s piqued interest she can feel through their bond (and the occasional bursts of shame when Bastila thinks she may have been caught and realizes that Revan can sense her general emotions through their bond), and the intensity of Bastila’s stare that Revan would probably be able to feel from low orbit even without being Force-sensitive, Revan knows early on what Bastila feels for her. Revan tries to redirect it. Not that Revan doesn’t feel it too, _ oh, Force _, is she feeling it too; but Bastila is a lot prettier than Malak ever was before Revan removed the lower half of his face, and Revan would hate to have to teach her that kind of lesson if it turned out that she was only drawn to Revan’s proclivity for power. So Revan teases Bastila and spends more time with Mission, who Bastila pretends not to like - Bastila is supposed to be above the annoying little sister teenage antics, though it’s clear that Mission melts her heart. Revan encourages the building playfulness she sees between Bastila and Carth too (it’s easy to see that Carth likes Bastila, but he’s too focused on being a Good Man and a Good Soldier to do much of anything for himself).

-

It’s on Kashyyyk that Bastila corners Revan on the _ Ebon Hawk _ , asking meekly if they can talk, but after they are closed into the starboard crew quarters together, standing awkwardly at a distance from each other, she is the quietest that Revan has ever seen her. _ I should tell her that I know _ . Bastila speaks very softly, and she rambles, circling around her point. _ I really should tell her that I know _. Bastila has closed the space between them, and Revan once again feels a flutter in her stomach that she now knows originated in Bastila’s body before settling in hers.

Revan is ready to confess everything, and opens her mouth to speak, “Bastila, I-”

Bastila is more intent on her own confession, placing one of her hands on Revan’s chest, and snaking the other onto the back of Revan’s neck - almost exactly mimicking the way she held Revan all that time ago on the bridge when she saved her life - and coming up onto her tiptoes to cover Revan’s mouth with her own. _ I should have told her; Force, I am screwed _.

This may be the first time that Bastila Shan has ever really kissed anyone. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut, almost in fear, but her lips crush against Revan’s with desperation. The unadulterated endorphin rush that Revan feels surging from Bastila through their bond is nearly overwhelming. Bastila’s passion feels so different from Malak’s, and Revan lets herself sink into it. She grips Bastila’s robes, slides her hands down to the crease at the back of her thighs, easily lifting her, and Bastila unthinkingly wraps her legs around Revan’s waist before gasping at her own nerve. Revan smirks before kissing at the corner of Bastila’s still-open mouth, and turns toward the bunks, taking a few steps forward to press Bastila’s back against the wall between the beds, not daring to be so presumptuous as to carry _ Bastila Shan _ immediately to bed at their first kiss. Revan gently releases her hold on Bastila’s legs, but keeps one of her knees wedged between them as Bastila slides into a standing position around it. Bastila’s fists are buried in Revan’s hair and robes as Revan leans forward to kiss her throat, and she is gasping for breath. 

_ IshouldhavetoldherIshouldhavetoldherIshouldhavetoldher _ plays on repeat in Revan’s mind; quietly enough though that it is easily drowned out by her focus on Bastila’s near-whimpering ragged breaths, and Bastila cannot sense the unease through their bond.

It is Bastila who pulls them down into a bunk, though she just wants Revan to hold her and keep kissing her, and Revan is happy to oblige. But Bastila is exhausted - from the quest, from keeping up the facade of being the perfect Jedi, from hiding her feelings, from exposing her feelings - and soon falls asleep curled tightly to Revan’s side. Now the voice in Revan’s head is sing-songy, taunting: _ Should have told her! Now what? Good morning Bastila, it’s me, Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith, what kind of breakfast ration would you like today? _ Revan quiets her mind by feeling the deep calm pouring off of Bastila; Bastila hasn’t felt so still and relaxed in the entire time that Revan has known her.

When Bastila awakens some hours later, it is with a rough jolt, and she scrambles over the dozing Revan. For a fraction of an instant, Revan is panicked that Bastila picked up on her own subconscious worries and now knows that she knows, and just woke up fully aware that she had completely let her guard down beside _ Darth Revan _ . To the contrary, Bastila had merely been doing some overthinking of her own, and starts muttering about “shouldn’t have done that,” “not allowed to do that,” apologizing for her actions, and stumbling over her words. Her face flushed, clothes and hair disheveled, she races from the room, leaving Revan with the thought: _ That definitely could have gone better _. Revan’s eyes briefly widen as she wonders if Mission came home to the ship during the night or if she stayed in Rwookrrorro with Zaalbar, and she has to shake off the thought of the fun Mission would have teasing Bastila over doing something as undignified as cuddling.

It is Zaalbar, of all of the crew members, who stops Revan as she steps out of the crew quarters, with narrowed eyes and a quiet grumble. In a low warble that is meant for only Revan to hear, he tells her with surprising clarity that he saw Bastila leave the room before her looking very upset, and that if she _ did _ anything to Bastila, he would gladly rip off Revan’s arms and beat her with them, life-debt or no. Revan didn’t think the Wookiee held any real affection toward Bastila, but apparently his sense of honor and chivalry could win out over a lot of things. 

-

The Force decides to accelerate the schedule on which Revan must tell Bastila what she does and does not know. When Revan asks if she wants to talk, Bastila asks for time to think, so Revan tries to leave her to it, but it is not long before the _ Ebon Hawk _ is intercepted by Admiral Saul Karath. As a result, Carth is able to get his revenge, but the Admiral uses his dying breath to ask Carth if he knows the _ truth _ about his companions.

_ I really, really should have told her _.

Bastila is able to buy them time, saying that they need to escape first and explain later, but then _ he _ shows up. Malak wants to gloat about his chance to finally take down his old Master face-to-face. Revan can’t tell if it’s nerves, a distraction, or a genuine relief for an excuse to finally be able to _ tell someone _ that keeps Bastila talking, but she tells the whole story. Malak expects to be able to lord this over his “fallen” Master, Bastila is prepared for Revan to loathe her, and Carth is still reeling, but none of them is prepared for Revan’s sheepish, “I know.”

Bastila and Carth’s eyes widen in shock and Malak laughs so hard Revan wonders if he’s going to knock his own prosthesis off his face before he causes a short-lived coughing fit. Malak rails about the witless, pathetic Jedi failing at even wiping Revan’s worthless mind. At that, Revan shoves Malak with a wall of Force energy just as he freezes Carth and Bastila in place.

Malak is not prepared enough for this fight. From the rumors he picked up and reports from his spies, he had expected to find Revan a shell of her former self, and while it is not easy, after chasing him through the ship Revan gets the upper hand. She is too focused on cutting him down to feel Bastila coming, shoving her out of the way, shouting something about holding him off so that Revan can go on and destroy the Star Forge.

Revan doesn’t know if it is Bastila or Malak who forces the door closed between them and jams the lock, she just knows that her asshole ex- ...everything... who she was about to kill, and the apparent idiot she had apparently maybe possibly fallen in love with are only separated from her by probably eight inches of durasteel. It takes a long moment to register that the sound she hears is her own ragged screaming as she tries to drive her saber through the door. Carth Onasi, Good Man and Good Soldier, can’t get her to listen to him and understand that as much as he hates to leave someone behind there is _ nothing _ they can do for Bastila, and staying behind and getting killed won’t help, so he heaves Revan, former Dark Lord of the Sith, over his shoulders into a rescue carry and sprints toward the hangar where their crew waits with the _ Ebon Hawk _ . The surprise shuts Revan up until a new sound bubbles out of her throat. She quickly chokes it back down when she realizes the sound is _ laughter _ at the absurdity of one of the most feared and revered modern Sith Lords breaking down over the love and loss of the Jedi who nearly murdered but then saved her, now being jarringly carried off into the night by a decorated Republic war hero. They are both silent the rest of the way to the ship; mercifully, Carth sets her back on her feet before they are in view of the _ Hawk _ so that she can maintain the tiniest shred of her dignity. Carth is exhausted, mildly traumatized, probably sporting several nasty injuries, and feeling mightily betrayed, but he is still a Good Man. He has the sense to wait until they are safely away from the _ Leviathan _ to gather the crew and ask Revan if she has anything she would like to _ share _, but at least he gives her the option of being the one to tell them. 

-

To say that the rest of the crew has mixed reactions to the news puts it gently. Juhani reels and is unsure if she wants to talk to or look at Revan for days. Jolee has always known, but knew that it was never his place to say anything. Canderous is only in this for the adventure, and he has always respected Revan - in any identity - so this is just an exciting twist for him. Zaalbar is confused, but his life-debt takes precedence. Mission says that Revan’s actions in the time they’ve known each other speak louder than any former life as a Sith Lord, but she’s visibly uncomfortable to be alone in a room with Revan. T3-M4 hums contentedly as always, and HK-47 almost manages to sound choked up at being able to talk openly about his true Master. Carth wants to know why Revan and Bastila didn’t trust him enough to tell him. Revan tells him honestly that she has no good excuse, and that the Jedi were probably trying to protect him. She openly admits that this also isn’t an excuse. Things are tense, and Revan is hard on herself wondering _ what if… _ , but she knows that does her no good, so they move on. They still have another map piece to find, and there’s an unspoken undercurrent on the ship, with varying degrees of concern, of _ If Revan wanted to kill us all, wouldn’t she have just done it already? _

-

When they crash-land on the Rakatan homeworld, Revan knows that something is not right. There are a multitude of things that are not right, but more so there is a pit in her stomach she can’t quite place. She tells all of the others to stay with the ship while she ventures out onto the planet. She can handle this place on her own, and she has to go into the Temple by herself anyway. Most of the crew are fine with this for their various personal reasons - the salty air and wet, sandy soil are not good for Juhani or the droids, Carth and Zaalbar want to get the ship space-worthy again, and Jolee feels like being pragmatic and cantankerous. Mission and Canderous would rather be doing something, but both of them follow Revan’s orders.

The Rakata remember Revan, and she remembers them. She remembers how to get into the Temple of the Ancients, but still has to go through the motions of earning the trust of the Elders so that they will perform the ritual for her and lower the barrier. Standing at the base of the Temple and watching the Elders prepare for the ritual, she understands where the pit in her stomach is coming from and the pit deepens.

The Elders’ chanting is interrupted by Jolee and Juhani, who claim that they have been given a dark premonition and they must accompany Revan into the temple. Revan knows why they are here, what they might have been shown. She felt it well before they did. She does not want them to come; she can guess what might happen if they come. Jolee bickers with the Elders, whose language he does not speak, until they assent and open the barrier to allow all three of them to pass.

When they reach the summit of the Temple, all of them know that the backlit figure waiting for them is Bastila - Revan has known it for so long, and has been whispering, both in her mind and sometimes aloud, _ I’m coming, I’m so sorry it took me so long, I’m coming to you _. Revan’s heart is in her throat, but when she hears Juhani and Jolee’s sabers ignite on either side of her, it drops.

Revan can feel gaping wounds in the Force in Bastila, but the woman in front of her is eerily calm. She tries to plan out ways that she can keep Juhani and Jolee away from Bastila so that none of them would get hurt. If they had foreseen Bastila attacking Revan and themselves coming to her aid, they were only going to make it true by having forced their way there. Maybe there had been no premonition and they simply no longer trusted Revan not to answer the call of the dark side and go off with Bastila to try to take over the galaxy - maybe they’d thought that was Revan’s plan all along. Whichever, they had not seemed to consider that Revan knew that Bastila would be there and simply planned to ask her to come home to the _ Hawk _, to beg if she had to, and if that wouldn’t work, to redirect all of her energy into killing Malak.

When Bastila speaks, hurt and hate pour off of her. She parrots Malak’s words - tells Revan that she had never loved _ her _ , only her _ power _ and her _ darkness _. Revan grits her teeth against the speech like it doesn’t burn her, and genuinely agrees with Bastila’s statements that the Jedi have never respected her, and never planned to, they only used her for her abilities, piled more responsibilities on her than were reasonable and then acted dismissive if she had even the slightest setback. Revan pleads with Bastila, continuously reaching out to her through their bond, asks her to come back and be with her.

When Bastila attacks, Revan freezes Juhani and Jolee in place before they can move toward her. Bastila lunges at Revan, but Revan only defends, easily parrying strikes from Bastila’s obviously stolen new lightsaber. The crystal does not want to listen to Bastila; her old saber surely misses her. When it is clear that Revan’s unwillingness to fight her is only enraging Bastila, Revan reaches into the Force to drain some of her energy. Bastila falters and steps back, breathing hard. Revan asks her again to stop this.

_ I love you. I need you. _ Revan isn’t entirely sure if she had said it out loud or just screamed it at Bastila through their bond, until Bastila asks her quietly if she’d meant it. 

A storm rages behind Bastila’s eyes as her heart battles with the lies and half-truths that Malak had fed her under torture, and Revan does not fault her when the torture wins, but damn, does it sting to hear Bastila say that she would rather serve at Malak’s side than stay with a weakling like Revan before racing off to a small ship.

Revan scans the summit, locating a Rakatan computer and working to lower the shields and shut down the disruptor field that had brought down their ship. From behind her, she hears Juhani padding up quietly, “Revan, we-”

Finished at the console, Revan spins to face the Cathar. “Do not. Speak to me.” Revan’s voice is low and even, with only the slightest hint of anger under the surface. As an afterthought, she adds, “Please.”

Revan can’t say whether things would have gone differently if Juhani and Jolee had not interfered, if she had been allowed to summit the Temple and face Bastila alone, but a large part of her wants to regret that she would never know. Instead, she wordlessly leads the others as quickly as they can go over the soft, wet ground back to the ship, hoping that it is ready to fly.

-

Revan considers telling the entire crew that they must stay behind with the ship when they dock at the Star Forge, but she knows that Malak will have troops he considers completely disposable - particularly once he learns that it is _ her _ coming to him. _ Did Bastila tell him that she didn’t kill me at the Temple? _Whatever the case, Revan knows it will not take Malak or Bastila long to sense that she had arrived.

Juhani and Jolee are staying on the ship. That is a non-negotiable order which causes the old man’s eyebrows to raise considerably, and the Cathar to make venomous accusations about Revan’s loyalties. Revan calmly explains though that the Star Forge is a living, feeding, dark entity, and the fewer Jedi in their attack group, the better. She leaves out that she does not trust either of them not to try to kill Bastila on sight, but eventually they both assent.

When Revan asks Canderous if he will join her, he responds with a grin that he probably thinks passes for rakish. HK tries to hide his disappointment at not being invited to help hunt down the original meatbag. When Revan explains that the Star Forge’s main defences consist of droids, making it dangerous for HK to accompany them as they will likely be using a lot of weapons that would risk damaging him, he fizzles slightly before stating that he would gladly accept the risk for her and for the honor of taking out Meatbag Prime. Revan thanks him, but tells him he can guard the ship instead. T3 has no interest in going anywhere, and had whirred off elsewhere in the ship to be useful before they even started discussing a strike team.

Revan would prefer for Carth to stay with the _ Hawk _ to keep it ready to fly, but knows that he would prefer to be part of the action and knows that she can use his skills, so she asks Mission and Zaalbar to take over the ship instead. Mission brightens at being given the responsibility. Revan and Mission both know that it’s partially a cover for the protectiveness that Revan feels for the girl, but Mission has accepted it, and winds herself around Revan in a tight embrace before encouraging her, “Don’t get killed out there, okay?” Mission glances seriously between Carth and Canderous, extending the statement to them as well.

-

Even as they are carving their way through the droids and troops that have been sent to slow her progress, and even over the Battle Meditation against them, Revan can feel the magnetic pull of her bond to Bastila. They reach a door Revan knows leads to the Command Center of the station, and she holds up a hand to stop the others. They are all singed from near-miss blaster fire, bleeding in places from vibroblades and grenade shrapnel, perspiring, their ears ringing and the muscles in their limbs burning from exertion. Revan’s head is still spinning slightly from a Sith apprentice trying to Force-choke her until Canderous noticed and put a blaster hole between the apprentice’s eyebrows. She reaches into the Force to heal her team as best she can, takes a deep breath, and activates the panel to open the door.

-

It doesn’t surprise Revan that Bastila throws Carth and Canderous back through the doorway and seals it shut before they can react. She expected to face Bastila and Malak alone, so she’s grateful to her men for getting her safely this far, and to Bastila for getting them out of harm’s way - even if that hadn’t been her intent.

Bastila taunts Revan with lines that Malak has fed her, and while hearing his words issue forth from Bastila’s mouth is cutting for Revan, she can sense that there isn’t true conviction behind them. Bastila’s anger is righteous - all her life she has been used by people she should have been able to trust, and Malak preyed on that - but as she tries to preach to Revan the freeing power of the dark side, it is clear that she is realizing he did the same thing to her.

As at the Temple, Revan cannot bring herself to strike Bastila; she only parries Bastila’s saber blades, uses her height, her feet, and the Force to make Bastila stumble. All the while, Revan tries to send soothing waves through their bond: _ I love you. I won’t hurt you. I’m sorry for everything. _

When Bastila steps back to circle Revan and accuse her of showing weakness, of being cheapened by the Jedi and the light, of being too tired to finish the fight, Revan simply stops, disengages her saber and slips it into the folds of her robe, and puts her hands at her sides. Bastila’s eyes widen but her hands stay firmly gripped around her saber.

“Bastila, you’re right, I’m not going to keep fighting you. But this isn’t about the Jedi and the Sith or the light and the dark.” Revan takes a step forward and Bastila tenses, deepens her stance. “It’s about telling you that you’re right - the Jedi Council and the Republic used you without respecting you, and the Jedi are too restrictive, to the point that they pushed so many of us over the edge. But Malak is using you too. And the Sith don’t truly understand freedom. The Sith understand power and domination - freedom for the strongest isn’t true freedom. Neither of them are right.”

As Revan speaks, she doesn’t break eye contact with Bastila, and she slowly closes the distance between them. She gently places a hand over one of Bastila’s on the hilt of her saber, squeezing gently over her thumb until it disengages and hisses off. “I’m not here to _ redeem _ you Bastila, or kill you, or tell you to come back to the light. I just want to tell you that I love you.”

Revan slips her free hand against the nape of Bastila’s neck and leans down to place her lips gently on Bastila’s forehead. From this position, Bastila could re-engage her saber and gut Revan if the fancy struck her, but Revan just feels her shake gently. After a moment, the clatter of Bastila’s lightsaber hitting the floor is the only warning before her knees buckle, and Revan gently helps her into a kneeling position.

“How?” The question comes out sounding halfway between a laugh and a hiccup. Bastila grimaces with frustration and shame. “How can you forgive me so easily? How can you say that you... _ love me _?”

“Because you saved me on the bridge that day.” Revan sees a flash of confusion on Bastila’s face and explains. It’s not just the bond that was forged that day: Malak’s betrayal had set Revan back on a middle path, even if it didn’t seem like it yet - and when a strike team of Jedi show up with weapons drawn, you have to defend yourself. The mind block had never worked, and Revan initially still had a lot of anger to work through. But if the Jedi who had been sent to kill her could change her mind, could decide instead to save her - maybe there was still hope for others to see the shades of grey, and maybe she could get back to the path she’d intended to be on. And now, Bastila has been on both extreme “sides” of the Force, but she doesn’t belong to either of them. 

The look on Bastila’s face is still one of confusion, but a smile mingles with it. “I love you too, Revan. When Malak found out, he tried to use that against me; I think some part of me just held it deeper inside where he couldn’t take it away from me.” Bastila closes her eyes and presses her forehead against Revan’s, and takes a steadying breath. “We’re going to have to talk about this, aren’t we? But right now, you need to stop him.”

Revan sits back on her heels, then levers herself back off the floor, offering her hands to Bastila to pull her to her feet. “Yes. But we’ll be able to talk about it, and that’s enough for me.”

Bastila offers to use her Battle Meditation to favor the Republic forces, and Revan tells her that she doesn’t have to, that it’s not a sign of weakness or darkness for her to rest after what she’s been through.

Placing an arm around Bastila’s shoulders, Revan leads them back to the door and taps the access panel to open it. Carth and Canderous both train their weapons on the pair until Revan tells them they can stand down, tells them to take Bastila to the ship. She gives Bastila’s hand one last squeeze and smiles to her soldiers before turning and trotting off to face Malak.

-

Malak’s tactics when Revan reaches him are cheap, cowardly. He knows that Bastila is no longer supporting his troops, and he can feel the difference in Revan’s composure when she steps onto the viewing deck behind him. He is wild, deteriorating, desperate. He is dangerous. He goads her briefly before realizing that Revan isn’t here to try to save him and the mockeries he had planned are falling flat.

Revan has a slight height advantage over Malak, but Malak is built like an assault tank. He is much better prepared for their fight this time, and the sense that he has nothing to lose spurs him on. She has to draw heavily on the Force to keep her guard up against the barrage of attacks, but she is more maneuverable, and in his fury he leaves himself open for counterattacks.

When Malak jumps away from the range of Revan’s blades to laughingly explain the purpose of the corpse-seeming Jedi suspended in tanks around the room, Revan is equal parts fascinated and horrified by the technology. After Malak saps the energy and Force from one of the bodies, leaving a withered husk, Revan is momentarily torn - she does not have the time to heal herself on her own, she is more capable in the Force than Malak and she could do the same to the remaining Jedi before he has the chance - she doesn’t know them and they’re dead anyway. But she can’t bring herself to do that and instead directs her energy into destroying the tanks that hold them, relaxing a little as she feels the captive Jedi rejoin the Force as she does so. 

Malak, reveling in his assumed failsafe advantage only an instant before, growls and flings himself across the room with a downward blow aimed at Revan’s head. She is only just able to block his blade, but still catches the brunt of his weight and lands hard on the platform. Revan has to roll to avoid a shower of frantic blows before she can shove Malak away, but then she feels it. Bastila is meditating again, this time for the Republic, and for _ her _. Malak can feel it too, and his movements become almost feral, but Revan is able to slip under his guard with devastating slices from her sabers that drop him to his knees.

Even while clutching at his torn and smoldering chest and abdomen, Malak is in disbelief. Revan takes his extinguished lightsaber from his hand and tosses it across the room, eases him onto the floor. Malak stares up at her wildly, rages against the impossibility of this scenario, blames her for his fall, and Revan allows him his dying tirade against her: it does her no good to correct him, and it has probably been a long time since Malak was able to actually release his fears and anger in anything resembling a healthy way. Revan had prepared herself for mixed emotions with confronting Malak, but not fully; as he draws a final gasping breath, Revan is distressed to feel a single sob catch in her throat and furiously wipes a line of tears off her cheek. She tries to rationalize that it’s more exhaustion and anger that fuels her outburst, but even though it has been a long time since she felt love for Malak, she still feels something for him. When he is gone, she eases herself back to her feet and starts to feel the extent of the day’s injuries. But Revan does not have the luxury of assessing or treating any of them, as the floor of the viewing deck trembles from Republic fleet’s onslaught. Revan focuses her mind on Bastila’s energy and lets that lead her out from the depths of the Forge.

Revan stumbles through the final blast door into the hangar, and it is Bastila who catches her. She crumples against the smaller woman, nearly taking them both to the floor before Bastila can steady them and half-lead-half-drag Revan to the ramp leading into the belly of the Ebon Hawk.

“Revan, it’s over - you did it.” Bastila cups Revan’s face in her hands and Revan feels the tug of the taut string connecting their hearts through the Force. Even with Malak gone, after everything that has happened, there is nothing that can ever fully uncomplicate Revan’s feelings for Bastila, but in that moment it is easy to love her.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how successful I was at getting across the message I intended, but I had a lot of fun writing this after replaying the game after several years. I'm super indebted to my beta-reader (padawanakin) who helped me make sure that I mostly maintained my control of the English language while writing this (verb tenses will be the death of me), and kept me on track in several places (and, I managed to find a beta who previously did not like Bastila and is now going to give her a second chance, so score one for the Revastila trashbag that is me). My beta and I both agreed that there might be more to tell here with my Revan and Bas, but I wasn't sure if anyone else would be interested in seeing what happens with them post-Star Forge and we felt like this was a pretty appropriate place to leave them. Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think!


End file.
